The National Network for Manufacturing Innovation

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On Jan. 28, 2014, U.S. Pres. Barack Obama announced in his State of the Union address that his administration had recently launched high-tech manufacturing hubs in Raleigh, N.C., and Youngstown, Ohio, as part of a joint public-private initiative: the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). Less than a month later, in a speech on February 25, Obama proclaimed the creation of additional NNMI hubs and declared, “I don’t want the next big job-creating discovery to come from Germany or China or Japan. I want it to be made here in America.”

Obama speaks on NNMIU.S. Pres. Barack Obama on February 25, 2014, announces the creation of two new hubs as part of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation initiative to stimulate manufacturing in the U.S. In the foreground are 3D-printed robotic arms developed for the U.S. Navy in a previous joint public-private high-tech enterprise.Gabriella Demczuk—The New York Times/Redux

3D printing NNMIIn March 2014 an employee at the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII), located in a once-abandoned warehouse in Youngstown, Ohio, prepares powdered nylon to be loaded into one of the high-tech hub's 3D printers. The NAMII was established in 2012 as a pilot program for the joint public-private National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) program to galvanize manufacturing in the U.S.Jason Cohn—Reuters/Landov

Obama first proposed the NNMI in his fiscal-year 2013 budget, arguing in March 2012 that federal government investment in the design and testing of new manufacturing processes would help bring the technologies to market sooner and would enable American manufacturers to become more competitive with commercial rivals in other countries, such as Germany. He requested $1 billion in mandatory funding for the Department of Commerce to establish 15 institutes for manufacturing innovation (IMIs) across the U.S. After Congress declined to act on the proposal, the administration instead used existing Department of Defense (DOD) spending authorities to fund a pilot institute, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII), in Youngstown.

For fiscal-year 2014 the president repeated his request for Congress to fund the NNMI, though it took until year’s end to pass the necessary legislation. In the meantime, the administration used existing spending authorities and appropriations (from the DOD and the Department of Energy [DOE]) to establish three more IMIs: in Raleigh, Chicago, and the Detroit area.

American Fraunhofers.

Gaps in research funding tend to fall in the intermediate, applied stages of development. As the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation noted in a 2012 report, the U.S. government traditionally funds basic research at the university level, whereas the private sector funds late-stage developments and tweaks to existing concepts. Often overlooked is the important transitional development stage, in part because private companies generally have little incentive to work on innovations that their competitors could also exploit.

President Obama proposed a set of federally financed regional innovation hubs, to be partially financed by consortiums of universities and private companies. He used as a comparative example Germany’s 67 fraunhofer societies, which are financed by federal and state governments as well as by the private sector. (Japan announced in 2013 that it planned to make a $2 billion investment to promote university–private-sector collaboration in applied research.)

IMI locations were determined by regional resources (e.g., the existence of research universities and compatible industries nearby) and funding levels by the economic potential and capital needs of each hub’s technological focus. IMIs typically would receive $70 million–$120 million in federal funds over a five-to-seven-year period, with matching or greater contributions from nongovernment partners.

According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) analysis of the NNMI, federal funding would typically be most lavishly provided when each IMI was being established. After two or three years, the majority share of funding would be obtained from private-sector financing. IMIs were meant to be fully independent after seven years, with their activities ideally sustained by revenue generated from such sources as intellectual property licenses and fee-for-services arrangements.

The Pilot Program.

Having solicited proposals for the NNMI pilot hub, the Obama administration on Aug. 16, 2012, announced the winning consortium: a 94-member group whose partners included 40 companies, 14 research universities and community colleges, and 11 nonprofit organizations. The pilot hub, the NAMII (also known as “America Makes”), received $30 million in initial federal funding and $15 million for specific projects as well as roughly $39 million from consortium partners and state government grants from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

The NAMII specialized in additive manufacturing, or “3D printing,” which entails having a digital computer file direct the creation and assembly of three-dimensional products or systems. Setting up shop in a once-shuttered warehouse in Youngstown, the NAMII installed 10 new 3D printers and in just over a year of operation funded two “project calls,” in which teams were invited to propose solutions to specific research topics. In 2014 the NAMII announced additional project calls.

The Next Generation Power Electronics National Manufacturing Innovation Institute.

In January 2014 a consortium of businesses and universities led by North Carolina State University (NCSU) won the bid for the Next Generation Power Electronics National Manufacturing Innovation Institute. Based at NCSU’s Centennial Campus in Raleigh, the institute was to be financed by a five-year, $70 million grant (i.e., $14 million in funding annually) from the DOE, which would be matched by contributions from such consortium members as heavy-equipment manufacturer John Deere and electronics company Delphi.

The institute’s focus was on developing energy-efficient technologies, particularly advanced semiconductor designs for automobiles, consumer electronics, and industrial equipment. Its projects included the research and development of wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors, which have greater electronic bandgaps than silicon-made semiconductors and thus are able to operate at higher temperatures.

The Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation Institute.

Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, the Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation Institute (LM3I Institute) was established in Detroit. It was scheduled to receive $148 million in federal and private-sector funding. Led by the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, and the Ohio-based manufacturing nonprofit EWI, the consortium also included Michigan State University and Wayne State University in Detroit.

The LM3I Institute was established to focus on innovations in the manufacture of lightweight materials for use by commercial and defense contractors, particularly for next-generation automobiles, aircraft, and other vehicles. A long-term goal was to expand the marketplace for lightweight metals and alloys, especially as global automobile manufacturers were expected to increasingly require lighter materials to help vehicles comply with U.S. fuel-economy standards. Other goals included implementing production scale-ups of existing lightweight alloys and reducing the time needed to create and evaluate new metal alloys.

The Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute.

The Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDI Institute), whose mandate was won by a consortium spearheaded by UI Labs, a nonprofit research and development (R&D) venture led by the University of Illinois, would focus on extending the range and life cycle of digital data in various manufacturing and maintenance systems. The DMDI Institute, based in Chicago, received a $70 million federal grant and an additional $250 million in state and private-sector financing from a consortium whose members included such corporate partners as General Electric, Rolls-Royce, Dow Chemical, and Lockheed Martin.

By late 2014 the DMDI Institute had released three project calls for R&D efforts. One of those proposals was intended to reduce development timelines for cyber-physical systems and pare the timescale for the design process for defense systems.

Long-Term Prospects.

In August 2013 U.S. Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri cosponsored the Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation Act of 2014, legislation that included an NNMI funding provision. The Senate Commerce Committee passed the bill in April 2014, and the House of Representative’s Science, Space, and Technology Committee assented in late July. The House passed the bill by voice vote in September and sent it back to the Senate. The funding eventually was included in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill that passed the House on December 11 and the Senate on December 13.

Critics of the NNMI argued that its role should be performed by the private sector and that the government should not “play favourites” by subsidizing particular industries or technologies. Skeptics pointed to the Obama administration’s controversial involvement in funding “green” technologies, in particular the case of the solar-panel company Solyndra Corp., which had received a $536 million loan guarantee from the DOE before filing for bankruptcy in 2011. Long-term financing also remained an issue. Although IMIs were meant to be self-sustaining within seven years, the administration had not specified what would occur should an IMI fail to achieve that goal. Nor, as the CRS analysis noted, had the administration defined what it considered to be “self-sustaining.” Some observers were concerned that IMIs would continue to compete for federal grants far beyond the projected seven-year time frame.